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Brazilian Social Democracy Party Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira
President	Geraldo Alckmin
Founded	25 June 1988
Split from	PMDB
Headquarters	SGAS Q.607,Ed. Metrópolis, Mód. B Cobertura 2- AsaSul Brasília, Brazil
Youth wing	Juventude Tucana
Membership	1,461,364[1]
Ideology	Centrism[2][3][4][5][6][7] Third Way[8] Internal Factions: Social liberalism[9] Social democracy[10] Liberalism[10] Christian democracy[11]
Political position	Centre[2][3][4][5][6][7]
National affiliation	Change Brazil
International affiliation	Centrist Democrat International (observer)
Regional affiliation	Christian Democrat Organization of America (observer)
Colours	Blue & Yellow
TSE Identification Number	45
Seats in the Chamber of Deputies	49 / 513
Seats in the Senate	12 / 81
Governors	8 / 27
Seats in State Assemblies	123 / 1,059
Local Government	793 / 5,566
Website
www.psdb.org.br
Politics of Brazil Political parties Elections

The Brazilian Social Democracy Party (Portuguese: Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, PSDB, also translated as "Party of Brazilian Social Democracy"^[12] or "Brazilian Social Democratic Party") is a centrist^{[3][4][5][6][7][13]}political party in Brazil. The third largest party in the National Congress, PSDB has been the main opposition against the administrations of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. Its mascot is a blue and yellow colored toucan; party members are called tucanos for this reason. Famous tucanos include Mário Covas, Geraldo Alckmin, Tasso Jereissati, Aécio Neves, former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Franco Montoro, Aloysio Nunes, Yeda Crusius, and José Serra.

Born together as part of the social democratic opposition to the military dictatorship from the late 1970s through the 1980s, PSDB and the Workers' Party have since the mid-1990s been bitterest rivals in current Brazilian politics—both parties de facto prohibit any kind of coalition or official cooperation with each other at any government levels.

History

Presidential elections against PT

With the imminent collapse of the military dictatorship in the early 1980s, a group of left-wing intellectuals were mobilized to create a leftist party. Some of them attempted to work with the labour movement, led by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, but the group split over ideological grounds. A group of democratic socialists and trotskists joined the labour movement and founded the Worker's Party, while the social democrats remained in the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) and would later create the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB).

PSDB was founded on 25 June 1988 by members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party linked to the European social democratic movement as an attempt to clarify their ideals. Its manifesto preached "democracy as a fundamental value" and "social justice as an aim to be reached". In its foundation, the party attempted to unite political groups as diverse as social democrats, social liberals, Christian democrats and democratic socialists. The period when PSDB was created was a very significant moment in the history of Brazilian politics. On 21 April 1985, the Brazilian people witnessed the death of Tancredo Neves, the last president not elected directly by the people since the beginning of the dictatorial government. With the formation of new parties, including PSDB, a National Constitutional Assembly was created and drafted the current democratic constitution in 1988.

A high proportion of the first members of PSDB came from the so-called "historic PMDB". This was and still is a very large party with many internal conflicts. The founders of PSDB were dissatisfied with the results of the Constitutional Assembly, and decided to create a party to reflect the need for a national political renewal. As their manifesto states, the new party was created "away from the official benefits, but close to the pulsing of the streets" (taken from a speech by party leader Franco Montoro). Some of the founding members were José Serra, Mário Covas, André Franco Montoro, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Aécio Neves, and Geraldo Alckmin.

In a country where two referenda, held in 1963 and in 1993, have shown a very strong preference for a presidential system of government, as in most countries of the Americas, PSDB stands almost alone in the preference given in its manifesto to a parliamentarian system of government. However, after the electors rejected "parlamentarismo" in 1993, and even though PSDB leader Cardoso was elected president the next year, the party did nothing in the last years to further the cause of a parliamentarian system.^{[citation needed]}

PSDB is one of the largest and most significant political parties in Brazil. Its official program says its policies are social democratic and often associated with the Third Way movement, although the party is also seen as influenced by neoliberalism. The party's program states that it "reject[s] populism and authoritarianism, as well as both fundamentalist neoliberalism and obsolete national-statism".^[14]

Despite its name, the PSDB is not a member of the Socialist International^[15] which draws together social democratic parties worldwide (the Brazilian member of the Socialist International is the Democratic Labour Party (PDT)). Also, the party has not, and has never had, the links to trade union movements that usually characterize social democratic parties; it used to sponsor a Central Union, SDS (Social-Democracia Sindical), which has now merged, together with Central Autônoma dos Trabalhadores (CAT), and the much more important Central Geral dos Trabalhadores (CGT), into the União Geral dos Trabalhadores (UGT),^[16] but its impact among the unions has always been quite unimpressive compared to even much smaller parties as the PDT or the PCdoB, or to the tucanos's own influence in society at large.

Recent times

A mere six years after its creation, PSDB won the presidency. It grew faster than any other party in Brazilian history, with an astonishingly good performance in elections at all levels. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso enjoyed eight years (1994–2002) of political stability in his tenure as president.

Accordingly, its 1980 honorary president, a good summary of the PSDB's stated program is: 1) constant defense of democracy. 2) the state at a minimally needed size. 3) administrative decentralization. 4) sustainable economic growth with wealth distribution. 5) political reform to make stronger parties with electoral districts, accountable representatives as well as aiming to reduce and eliminate corruption.

Controversies

Ranking of corruption

Based on data released by the Superior Electoral Court, the Movimento de Combate à Corrupção Eleitoral (English: Movement to Combat Electoral Corruption) released a balance on 4 October 2007, with the parties that include the largest number of parliamentarians quashed by electoral corruption since 2000. PSDB appeared in third place on the list, with 58 cases, behind only DEM and PMDB.^[17]

According to analysis released on 8 September 2012 of 317 Brazilian politicians who were barred from running in elections by Ficha Limpa Supplementary Law (English: Clean Slate), PSDB is the party that has the largest number of barred candidates, with 56 party members.^[18]

A Privataria Tucana

In 2011 a book written by journalist Amaury Ribeiro Jr., a former special reporter of weekly magazine ISTOÉ and daily newspaper O Globo, highlighted documents that show supposed irregularities in privatizations that occurred during the administration of the former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. It contains about 140 pages of photocopied documents trying to demonstrate that president Cardoso's Minister of Planning and later Minister of Health, José Serra, received kickbacks from businessmen that participated in the Brazilian privatization process, held companies in tax shelters and moved millions of dollars between 1993 and 2003.^[19]

Ideology

Although PSDB declares itself as a center party, some people in the left rejects this definition, especially after Fernando Henrique Cardoso embraced Third Way politics as President. According to many critics, the party is seen as "neoliberal" from its beginnings.^[20]Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, one of the founders of PSDB, left the party "for ideological reasons", claiming "that the party had taken a hard turn to the right."^[21]

Political analyst Angelo Segrillo, in an article titled "The left-right confusion in the post-Berlin Wall world", says that "most analysts defined PSDB as center-left as of its foundation, after all, it was the Brazilian Social Democratic Party". As he notes, "this story changed after 1994, with the election of PSDB to the presidency". "A rhetoric of overcoming classical ideological division (…) was one of the justifications of the grand parliamentary alliance with center and right-wing parties (…) As such, after the 1994 presidential election, most analysts started defining PSDB as a center party along with PMDB".^[22] In its 2009 report about Freedom in the World, Freedom House defined the opposition coalition (formed by PSDB, PPS and Democrats) as a "center-right coalition".^[23] However, in the 2010 report of the same organization, PSDB was defined as a "center-left" party.^[24]

Workers' Party campaign leader Marco Aurélio Garcia criticized declarations made by PSDB president Sérgio Guerra that PSDB is "the real left". He said that "PSDB is not a right wing party, it is the right wing's party".^[25]

Political alignment

PSDB questions the use of what it considers "outdated political labels", such as "left" and "right". To quote a document drafted by Fernando Henrique Cardoso's office in 1990:

"If left means to be against the existing social order, and right in favor, then social-democracy is without doubt a left current. … A social democrat is before anything someone who has critical sense—who realizes the injustices of society and has no fear to oppose them, even at the risk of being taken as a subversive or a dreamer."

The party did not preach nationalization or privatization in general ("the consensus is that the state must not be too big or too small, but 'have the size and functions corresponding to the needs of the whole of society'"), although president Cardoso privatized many large public companies, such as Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) and the national telecommunication system. Many political scientists in Brazil believed that the party, in its antagonism with the Worker's Party, made a move to the right in recent years to fulfill a void in the Brazilian political spectrum and to put a certain distance between it and the Worker's Party political views, which also moved more to the right (from the far-left or left to the center-left) in the nineties in order to be elected. One valid observation to foreign readers, unaware of the status of Brazilian politics, is that, even thought the party is now further right than ever, it'd still be considered a leftist party in the European or American political spectrum, since it defends an active governmental participation in the economy and big social programs like the Brazilian federal program Bolsa Família.

Voter Base

The main electoral base of the party is the State of São Paulo. The party triumphed in all but three major elections to executive chairs in new republic in the state. The party also has a stronghold in other regions which reject PT, like the Espirito Santo, southern and mid-western states. Unlike PT, the party have less rejection in areas which often votes in PT in national elections, like the North and Northeastern regions and Minas Gerais. Many leaders of the party comes from these regions, like Tasso Jereisatti, Aécio Neves, Teotonio Vilela Filho, Cassio Cunha Lima, Sergio Guerra and Simão Jatene. However, the party hasn't succeeded in transform it into results in presidential elections, partly because of Lula's charisma and partly because of internal infighting.

Most of party rejection come from the State of Rio de Janeiro. In Rio, the protagonism of the party in the Brazilian centre/centre-right is often lost by PMDB and parties with less national representation, like Progressistas, Party of the Republic, Brazilian Republican Party, Democratas and Social Christian Party. The party elected governor, senator and triumphed in Rio de Janeiro in a presidential election in all history of the party in a single time - Marcello Alencar, Artur da Távola and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC), respectively - in 1994, which the popularity of FHC and Plano Real boosted the party. The same phenomena of rejection also happens with PT in Rio; However, PT managed better the situation and gets the presidential votes in Rio.

Despite being considered a centre-left party by their own members, media and by the Brazilian right, PSDB has little or no appeal to the majority of Brazilian left. The majority of support and bases of Tucanos comes from conservatives and liberal sectors, like militant Christians, professionals, the middle and upper-middle class, farmers, landowners and business-owners. The reasons for it come from this support came from the more softcore and far-less populist rhetoric and ideology from the party compared with PT, the major economic reforms which the party led in the 90's and the major influence of DEM in the party.

This supports, however, isn't seen with good eyes inside the "old guard" of the party. Many "toucans" often publicly express their discomfort with the party; Even FHC, the main member of the party's history, constantly goes on criticism of figures such as Colonel Telhada, a former police officer who has elected a deputy in São Paulo with proposals such as reducing the age of defense of infancy, harsher penalties for criminals and appealing to the evangelical electorate, of which he is a member, and João Dória Junior, the new major of São Paulo who is often accused of populism, aggressive self-promotion, extreme free-market ideology and antipetism. These difference between the voters, base and the elite and old members is seen as an important factor to the often internal rifts between Tucanos

In 2017, a group of new, young federal representatives, nicknamed "black heads" - in reference to their youth, contrasting with a visible gray or bald head of older and progressive members - began to gain prominence in the party. This wing, made up of members in their 30s or less, shows a strong opposition to the continued support of the party to government of President Michel Temer and pro-free market proposals far more assertive than the old party members such as José Serra and Aloysio Nune. Black Heads now occupies important positions inside the party and, with overtly support of the base and social movements like MBL, have conditions to push the party more to the right-wing of the Brazilian political spectrum

List of party presidents

• José Richa (1988–1989)


• 
  Mário Covas (1988–1989)


• 
  Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1988–1989)


• 
  Franco Montoro (1988–1989)


• 
  Franco Montoro (1989–1991)


• 
  Tasso Jereissati (1991–1994)


• 
  Artur da Távola (1995–1996)


• 
  Teotonio Vilela Filho (1996–2001)


• José Aníbal (2001–2003)


• 
  José Serra (2003–2005)


• Eduardo Azeredo (2005)


• 
  Tasso Jereissati (2005–2007)


• 
  Sérgio Guerra (2007–2013)


• 
  Aécio Neves (2013–2017)


• 
  Tasso Jereissati (acting) (2017)


• 
  Alberto Goldman (acting) (2017)


• 
  Geraldo Alckmin (2017–present)

Main Members

• 
  Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil;


• 
  Aécio Neves, party president, senator by Minas Gerais;


• 
  Geraldo Alckmin, governor of São Paulo;


• 
  José Serra, senator by São Paulo, former Ministry of Health and Ministry of Foreign Relations;


• 
  João Doria Junior, mayor of São Paulo ;


• 
  Aloysio Nunes, senator by São Paulo;


• 
  Cássio Cunha Lima, party leader in the Federal Senate, senator by Paraíba;


• 
  Antonio Imbassahy, party leader in the Chamber of Deputies, deputie by Bahia;


• 
  Beto Richa, governor of Paraná;


• 
  Simão Jatene, governor of Pará;


• 
  Marconi Perillo, governor of Goiás;


• 
  Pedro Taques, governor of Mato Grosso;


• 
  Reinaldo Azambuja, governor of Mato Grosso do Sul;


• 
  Arthur Virgílio Neto, mayor of Manaus, Amazonas;


• 
  Zenaldo Coutinho, mayor of Belém, Pará;


• 
  Rui Palmeira, mayor of Maceió, Alagoas;


• 
  Firmino Filho, mayor of Teresina, Piauí.


• 
  Yeda Crusius, former governor of Rio Grande do Sul.

References

External links

• 
  Official website (in Portuguese)
  


• 
  Official website of Institute of Political studies of the party (in Portuguese)